


I Know That When I'm With You I'm At Home

by NeedsMoreAU



Series: Sorikai Week 2020, NeedsMoreAU [5]
Category: Kingdom Hearts (Video Games)
Genre: Domestic, Fluff, Multi, SoRiKai Week 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-07
Updated: 2020-08-07
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:22:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25768117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NeedsMoreAU/pseuds/NeedsMoreAU
Summary: Sorikai week 2020Day 5 - Domestic
Relationships: Kairi/Riku/Sora (Kingdom Hearts)
Series: Sorikai Week 2020, NeedsMoreAU [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1872967
Comments: 1
Kudos: 23
Collections: Sorikai Week





	I Know That When I'm With You I'm At Home

Everyone took to the ending of the war differently.

There were the Land of Departure natives, two of whom were more than happy to return there, after so many years away from home. Aqua had duties as a Keyblade master after all, and Terra was working towards retaking his exam, eager to help. Ventus however, had declared he couldn’t spend another night sleeping under that roof. He was off somewhere on an adventure, something to do with memories and lost time and the cat he’d rescued. He’d taken Vanitas with him, to the utter displeasure of Vanitas and the great relief of everyone else.

The nobodies were settling into the one place they’d all considered home, Twilight Town. Even the somebodies, Isa and Lea, were sticking around, helping the kids clean out the old mansion (All the other Radiant Garden citizens were back to living in their own world, and taking steps to make up for their actions). All Roxas and Xion and Namine had ever wanted was a chance at their own lives. And Isa and Lea needed time to find theirs again. Lea in particular was taking to all the newfound freedom in a very peculiar way, collecting every stray teenager in town and offering them a place in the estate. Fighting some other kind of war, one he’d seen wreck too many lives.

And the destiny trio? They just wanted to go home.

The three of them settled into their own little cottage on the beach, just a short walk away from Sora’s mom. She came by often, with sandwiches and iced tea and hugs for her son and his partners, determined to make up for lost time. She helped them paint the walls, rewire the lights, and even donated a few old kitchen appliances she claimed she ‘didn't need anymore’. Like his mother, Sora tackled every home repair job with enthusiasm, kneeling beside her as the two of them worked to replace leaky pipes or crown molding. Most of their families donated furniture, and Riku busied himself with assembling the rest, muttering over a paper booklet as he put together desks and chairs and side tables. Kairi hung up glass suncatchers in the kitchen window (A gift from Aqua) and placed vases of flowers on empty tables (A gift from Aerith). Between the four of them, moving in went quickly.

All in all, the cottage was cozy, if a little messy. But any shortcoming of the house was more than made up for by the people in it. For once in their life, Sora, Kairi, and Riku were together, living under one roof. It was their first chance at a life together, and they were excited to give it a try.

Riku signed up for a few college classes. He claimed he wanted to ‘broaden his horizons’ and ‘fill in the cracks of his mismatched high school education’. Sora and Kairi though, knew that he was really just stalling for time before he was actually expected to decide what he wanted to do. They didn't press it. He'd had enough of being forced to make hard decisions.

It worked out though, because Riku took to his classes like a sponge that had been left in the desert for far too long. He bought books, and pored over them nightly, taking tiny notes in the margins, humming quietly to himself while compiling flashcards and highlighting passages. When he pushed his hair out of his face after learning something particularly interesting and looked up to tell them about it, he was happier than Sora of Kairi had seen him in years, the quiet excitement that hadn't been in his eyes since the early days of Project Raft, researching sailing and survival, and drawing schematics in the sand.

Kairi, on the other hand, was determined to make her own future, with her own two hands. And she did. She collected her bundles of wire and shells from the hoard she’d maintained since she was a child, and spent her days twisting and chaining them into something beautiful. She carved out her own space in the cutthroat Destiny Islands Trinket Trade, selling her jewelry at the Sunday markets for tidy sums. She worked online too, maintaining a Kingstagram to showcase her more elaborate pieces, and taking custom orders and shipping her work all over. It wasn't ‘whacking heartless’ terms of munny, but between her jewellery and Sora’s on-and-off jobs, they managed pretty well.

Sora, well, he couldn't decide what to do. He'd done a lot of odd work over the years, in his downtime on other worlds. And while he couldn't exactly put “Guardian of Light” on his resume, “Sailor, singer, chef, gardener, Coliseum tournament champion, superhero, dogwalker, cardplayer” made up for it. He could, in a pinch, land just about any job he set his mind to, if only because most employers had a hard time passing up the polite young man who charmed everyone he met. The problem came with landing a job and _sticking_ with it. Not that he got bored or decided to quit, just that there was always someone new needed help, always something new he wanted to try. “The place I was waiting drinks at looks out over the beach, and they needed a second hand teaching kids swim classes. I met a parent through the swim classes who asked if I could help at their studio. Pottery was interesting, but I never actually learned how to knit and this old man who came in was looking for someone to pitch in with making socks…” And so on and so on.

After two months of Sora haphazardly darting around town with flowmotion and business owners from all over the island wildly calling each other to ask “why is Sora with _you_ at the docks, he has a shift with _me_ in five minutes!”, an unspoken rule was made. Never hire Sora. If you have a problem, call him, and the guy would be more than happy to do any part time work.

One college student, one entrepreneur, and one jack of all trades. It was a chaotic house, lively and full. It was theirs.

And most of all, it was blessedly _normal_.

Or, at least, they tried.

-

It was hard to put down the keyblade. They learned that the first day, when Sora came home and hung it on a hook on the coat rack. The weapon disappeared in a poof of sparkles and reformed in its master's hands. He tried again, to the same effect. With a small chuckle, he banished it, and sank onto the couch, snuggling up next to Riku and Kairi for their movie night.

Except when the movie had a jumpscare, a costumed monster popping onto screen and sending all of them scrambling backwards, the keyblade was back in his hand. Not maliciously, not on instinct. Sora wasn't back on the battlefield. He knew exactly where he was: on the couch, with his partners. And although they were all a little startled, it was more a quick jolt of adrenaline than a full on fear. The keyblade had just answered some call he hadn't even realised he made.

As the days passed, it became clear to all of them that the keyblades weren't being summoned as weapons. No, they were being summoned for… comfort. Particularly Sora, who had always liked the weight of the key in his hand, the heft of not feeling completely helpless. But there were nights when Riku, up too late and frazzled from studying, would begin tracing the grooves and ridges on the teeth of Braveheart. Or Kairi, swamped by orders and out of ideas, would examine the curling gold filigree on Destiny’s Embrace and find a second wind of inspiration.

And, as long as they held the keyblade, there were heartless.

Not as many as there were in the old days, only one or two every week, but still enough to make it a hassle. Sora took up the job of clearing them, doing monthly sweeps of islands. When they ran across one in town, Sora would be called to squash it, like he was the only person in the house that could kill the spider. (He wasn't, Kairi was the spider-squisher.) Kairi and Riku would be lying if they said they didn't think he enjoyed it, like he was still travelling the world, helping people and fighting off the darkness.

That, and, Sora kept losing his keys.

Riku and Kairi would almost think he was doing it on purpose, but they'd known their boyfriend long enough to understand that he could misplace pretty much anything that wasn't firmly attached to his person with buckles or velcro. No matter how many replacements were made, Sora always set them down somewhere and forgot, and had to resort to unlocking the front door with the Kingdom Key. Which was a bit of a problem, since every time, he had to do the whole ‘Glowing-crown-emblem-on-the-ground, fancifully-gesture, shoot-a-beam-of-pure-light-into-the-lock’ song and dance.

Riku and Kairi were pretty sure their neighbors were going to file a light pollution complaint any day now.

Riku was also a bit of a nighttime nuisance, if he wasn't careful. He had a bad habit of staying up too late, reviewing notes or finishing up an essay, and then falling asleep on the couch rather than make the long trek upstairs to their bedroom. Without the comforting presence of Kairi and Sora snuggled against his side, and the familiar stomping ground of their dreams, he’d wander the Realm of Sleep, popping in on various nightmares and doing his best to shoo them away.

Mrs. Germundson might appreciate no longer dealing with her recurring nighttime anxieties of spiders with hooves, but coming down to breakfast only to learn her husband had been saved from his dream of showing up to school late (He was forty six and didn't even teach) by the same silver haired boy with multicolored eyes, well, people had to wonder.

And the gossiping didn't even end with The Hero of the Key or the reluctant dreameater. No, even Kairi, who according to the locals was always the ‘normal one’ of the three, was causing a bit of a scandal.

Kairi had never really noticed her light before. When she’d first learned she was a ‘Princess of Heart’, she’d very nearly laughed, despite the graveness of the situation. _Her_ , the girl that cursed like a sailor when she stubbed a toe or fought seagulls for her stolen lunch, _she_ was pure light?

Sure, those especially close to her might remark that Kairi always made the world feel brighter, but they just brushed it off as fondness for the girl. Yes, when she smiled, she seemed almost aglow with happiness, but that was just their eyes playing tricks on them, right? When she pulled in Sora and Riku in for a hug, many people were willing to brush off the way they almost lit up as one of those weird side effects of being in love.

It wasn't until the old woman at the shop counter commented on it that even Kairi herself realised.

“Hm, I'm glad that you finally have those boys of yours home.”

“Pardon?” Kairi, still counting out her change, paused to look at the woman. Sure, gossip in the islands travelled fast, but Sora had only flown in last night, fresh back from locking away a worlds heart, seemingly the last one. There would be more over the years, and they would have to take care of that as it came up, but for now, the three of them were looking at some well deserved time off. “How can you tell?”

“My dear, you're practically _glowing_.”

She brought a hand to her face, and, sure enough, her skin was giving off a soft, pearly luminessence.

“Huh.”

She couldn't turn it off. As she fell back into the easy rhythm of island life, she noticed it more. Little sparks dancing around shells she collected for projects she was excited to work on. A soft halo around Riku’s hair as she brushed it out of his face. A trail of glowing footprints leading down the beach when she took evening walks. It was like the more she felt at home, at peace, the brighter her light shone.

It was, in Kairi’s opinion, the exact opposite of a bad thing.

-

“I assure you, dad, we’re _fine_. Just taking some time to get settled, that's all.” Kairi led her dad up the stone path to their front door, trying to give her best winning smile. It didn't really dissuade her dad. He frowned.

“Sweetie, you know I love you.” She did, but him leading with that didn't bode well. “But I have practically the whole island breaking down my door with stories about shadow creatures and magic dream men and glowing beaches.” He grimaced deeper. “And that's not even including all the _normal_ housing association violations you've racked up. Really, you thought you could build a spaceship landing pad without a _permit_?”

“It's called a gummy ship,” she corrected. “And we couldn't find any forms that dealt with interworld travel.”

They reached the porch, and Kairi turned to her dad to give one last reassuring grin as she lay her hand on the doorknob. The door was unlocked, an attempt to circumvent Sora’s dramatic lightshow, so she didn't even need to fumble for her keys.

The second the door opened, she instantly wished it wasn't.

The open doorway offered her dad a great view of her boyfriends, keyblades in hand, running around inside the living room, chasing a fat blue dog-looking creature, who was in turn chasing around a small shadow heartless. Kairi wouldn't tell if the dreameater wanted to attack it, or make friends. Either way, it didn't seem concerned with the safety of their interior decorations, as it slid a corner and crashed into a lamp, shattering it with a clatter.

“Kairi!” Sora finally caught sight of her standing in the doorway. “Shut the door! I think that's how it-” He swung his key. The shadow disappeared into the floor, avoiding the attack, which unfortunately left the floorboards to take the brunt of the damage. They splintered. “-got in!”

“The meow-wow?” She asked, because her brain was still short circuiting, and that seemed the only thing she could parse. From his perch on top of the couch, Riku shook his head.

“No, the heartless. Meow-Wow was lonely and kept bugging me about Sora so I thought I’d bring it to visit and,” He blushed, an embarrassed tic that only worsened when he caught sight of the man standing behind Kairi. “Um hi, Mr.-”

“Kairi! It's coming your way!”

Almost on instinct, she summoned her keyblade and brought it down in an arc, smashing the little creature as it passed her on its retreat. Then, she blasted even the shadowy wisps away with a beam of light (Perhaps overkill, but it wouldn't do any good to have lingering stains of darkness on their porch steps. At the very least, Riku would have complained about the smell.)

Meow-Wow whined at the loss of it's playmate, but quickly got over it, waddling up the Kairi’s feet and plopping down, it's stubby tail wagging. Acquiescing, she bent down to give it a few pats.

“Who's a good doggo? Who is it?” Meow-Wow contemplated this for a minute. “It's you!”

“Kairi…” her father started.

“Yes?” She glanced up, still giving Meow-Wow little scritches. She knew how she looked, silhouetted in the view of her ruined living room, her boyfriends still holding oversized keys and doing their best to look abashed, a huge beast that stalked nightmares drooling on her shoes.

He shook his head.

“Nothing. You three take care.” Still sighing to himself, he turned and walked back down the path, making sure to latch the gate behind him. Kairi watched her father go.

She took a few tentative steps into the house, Meow-Wow trotting after her. The boys banished their keyblades and came to stand beside her, taking in the shattered lamp and the torn couch and the large, creaking hole in the floor. As one, without any words, they sank to the ground. Riku laughed.

“We’re never going to be a normal household, are we?”

Sora reached over to give Meow-Wow tummy rubs, smiling.

“Nah.”

Watching her boys playing with a weird cat-dog-balloon creature, Kairi couldn't help but agree. She smiled, and her happiness literally lit up the room, casting a glow over this cozy, cramped, and messy cottage that they all called home.

“Good.”


End file.
